“The Debutante Ball has introduced us to some of the best contemporary authors.”
-WeHeartWriting.com
For Immediate Release:
September 3, 2019– Founded in 2007, The Debutante Ball celebrates the journey of five female debut authors on their paths to publication. Through discussions that range from craft and creativity to copy edits and cover designs—plus weekly guest posts by published authors—The Debutante Ball offers guidance and a supportive community for aspiring and published writers, as well as for readers curious about the behind the scenes of book publishing. Now in its fourteenth year, the collaborative, daily blog has helped launch the careers of 65 authors, including New York Times bestselling authors Eleanor Brown (The Weird Sisters), and Tiffany Baker (The Little Giant of Aberdeen County), and acclaimed authors Natalia Sylvester (Everyone Knows You Go Home), Amy E. Reichert (The Coincidence of Coconut Cake), Aya de Leon (Uptown Thief), and Karma Brown (Come Away With Me).
This year, the 2020 Debutante Class includes five talented debut novelists whose books span a wide variety of genres, eras, and audiences. Their novels and blogging schedules are as follows:
 On Mondays you’ll hear from Lisa Braxton, whose debut THE TALKING DRUM will be published by Inanna Publications in May 2020.
In THE TALKING DRUM, it is 1971. The fictional city of Bellport, Massachusetts, is in decline with an urban redevelopment project on the horizon expected to transform this dying factory town into a thriving economic center. This planned transformation has a profound effect on the residents who live in Bellport as their own personal transformations take place. THE TALKING DRUM explores intra-racial, class, and cross-cultural tensions, along with the meaning of community and belonging. |
 On Tuesdays you’ll hear from Kathleen West, whose debut MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES will be out from Berkley (Penguin Random House) on February 4, 2020.
MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES IS about the privileged bubble that is Liston Heights High—the micro-managing parents, the overworked teachers, and the students caught in the middle—and the fallout for each of them when the bubble finally bursts. When a devoted teacher comes under pressure for her progressive curriculum and a helicopter mom goes viral on social media, two women at odds with each other find themselves in similar predicaments, having to battle back from certain social ruin.
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 On Wednesdays you’ll hear from Karen Osborne, whose debut ARCHITECTS OF MEMORY will be published by Tor in January 2020.
In ARCHITECTS OF MEMORY Terminally Ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in the war with the alien Vai, but she’ll be damned if she loses her future. Her plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and fine a cure. When her crew salvages a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that threatens to turn her into a living weapon. |
 On Thursdays you’ll hear from Yodassa Williams, whose debut THE GODDESS TWINS, will be published by SparkPress in May of 2020. In
In THE GODDESS TWINS after years of traveling the world, black identical twins Aurora and Arden find themselves forced into a wild new reality just when they think they’ve finally settled into normalcy in Ohio. Days before their eighteenth birthday, the snarky twins develop powers in telekinesis and telepathy—at the same time as their famous mother, on tour in London, disappears. |
 And on Fridays you’ll hear from Amy Klein, whose debut THE TRYING GAME: GET PREGNANT AND GET THROUGH FERTILITY TREATMENT WITHOUT LOSING YOUR MIND will be published by Ballantine in March 2020.
THE TRYING GAME is a guide to both the emotional and technical process of trying to get pregnant, written with the smarts, warmth, and honesty of someone who has been in the trenches. Empowering, compassionate, and down-to-earth, THE TRYING GAME will show you what to expect when you’re not expecting with heart and humanity when you need it the most. |
The talking drum seems like the most realistic